Chapter 11

The sun is high; heated with his exertions, Siegfried returns to his mossy couch under the trees, and is presently again looking overhead for the friendly bird. "Once more, dear little bird, after such a troublesome interruption, I should be glad to listen to your singing. I can see you swinging happily on the bough; brothers and sisters flutter around you, blithe and sweet, twittering the while...." A vague sadness touches his mood, and this pensive moment goes far toward gaining back to him the sympathy which his overgreat sturdiness in dealing death had perhaps forfeited. He is now a poor lonesome beautiful boy, completely sweet-blooded and brave--the hunter that has never robbed the mother of her young--whose heart full of instinctive affection has never had an object on which it could spend itself. "But I," he says envyingly to the bird, "I am so alone! I have neither brother nor sister! My mother vanished,--my father fell,--their son never saw them...." In this humour he lets a shade of regret transpire for the necessity to kill Mime. "My only companion was a loathly dwarf; goodness never knit the bond of affection between us; artful toils the cunning foe spread for me. I was at last even forced to slay him!" He stares sorrowfully at the sky through the trees. "Friendly bird, I ask you now: will you assist my quest for a good comrade? Will you guide me to the right one? I have called so often and never found one; you, my trusty one, will surely hit it better! So apt has been the counsel given by you already! Now sing! I am listening for your song!" Readily the bright voice from above answers in a joyous warble: "Hei! Siegfried has slain the wicked dwarf! I have in mind for him now the most glorious mate! On a high rock she sleeps, a wall of flame surrounds her abode. If he should push through the fire, if he should waken the bride, then were Bruennhilde his own!" With an instantaneousness touchingly significant of his hard heart-hunger, an attack of impassioned sighing seizes the young Siegfried. "Oh, lovely song! Oh, sweetest breath! How its message glows within my breast, burning me! How it sets my enkindled heart to throbbing! What is it rushing so wildly through my heart and senses?... It drives me, exulting, out of the woods to the mountain-rock. Speak to me again, charming singer: shall I break through the fiery wall? Can I waken the bride?" "Never," replies the bird, "shall the bride be won, Bruennhilde wakened, by a faint-heart! Only by one who knows no fear!" Siegfried shouts with delight: "The stupid boy who knows no fear--little bird, why, that am I! This very day I gave myself fruitless pains to learn it from Fafner. I now burn with the desire to learn it from Bruennhilde! How shall I find the way to her rock?" The bird forsakes the treetop, flutters over the youth's head and flies further. Siegfried interprets this as an invitation. "Thus is the way shown me. Wherever you fly, I follow your flight!" We see him going hither and thither in his attempt to follow the erratic flight of a bird. His guide after a moment bends in a definite direction and Siegfried disappears after him among the trees.

III

A wild region at the foot of a rocky mountain, the mountain at the summit of which Bruennhilde sleeps. In night and storm Wotan the Wanderer comes to seek Erda, the Wise Woman, the Wala. He conjures her up from the depths of the earth into his presence. We see her appear, as before, rising in the gloom of a rocky hollow up to half her height.

In all his wandering over the earth, in search of wisdom and counsel, none has Wotan found so wise as she. The question he proposes is: How may a rolling wheel be arrested in its course?

Erda is not willingly waked out of her sleep, nor is it her wont to communicate directly with the upper world. In her slow and solemn sleep-weighted tones, she tells him that the Norns spin into their coil the visions of her illuminated sleep. Why does he not consult them? Or why, she asks, when that counsel is rejected, why does he not, still mote aptly, consult Bruennhilde, wise child of Wotan and Erda?

In his reply, Wotan briefly sums Bruennhilde's offence: She defied the Storm-compeller, where he was practising the utmost self-compulsion; what the Leader of Battle yearned to do, but refrained from, his own antagonist,--all too confident, the insolent maid dared to bring about for herself.

At the indication of Bruennhilde's fate, indignation possesses the Wala. In view of such high-handed injustice, she wishes and struggles to return back into the earth and be merged with her wisdom in sleep. But Wotan will not release her until she has satisfied him "You, all-knowing one, once drove the thorn of care into Wotan's daring heart; with the dread of an adverse ignominious ending you filled him by your foreknowledge, so that his courage was in bondage to fear. If you are the wisest woman in the world, tell me now: how shall the god overcome that care?" But the injured mother is not to be conciliated. "You are not," she startlingly announces, "what you call yourself!"--Not a god, Wotan?--"What are you come, wild and turbulent spirit, to disturb the Wala's sleep? Restless one, release me! Loose the spell!" "You are not" he retorts, "what you suppose yourself!"--Not the wisest of women! In that she has not divined what he has really come to impart, rather than seriously to ask counsel. For his true errand is to show her the fruits of time in himself, the mood of patience and reconciliation he has reached, nay, of hope for a future in which he is to have no part, that Bruennhilde's mother may sleep the more quietly, and, untroubled, watch the end overtake him through her dream. "Do you know what it is Wotan wills? I speak it in your ear, unforeseeing one, that with easy heart you may return to your eternal sleep. The thought of the end of the gods no longer grieves me, since it is my desire and my will! The thing which I once, in pain and conflict, torn by despair, resolved, I now joyfully and freely carry out: in raging disgust I once devoted the world to the ill-will of the Nibelung; to the joyous Waelsung I now appoint my inheritance. He whom I have chosen, but who has never known me, an intrepid boy, unaided by counsel of mine, has conquered the Nibelung's Ring. Void of envy, happy and loving, Alberich's curse falls away crippled when it would light on the noble one, for fear is unknown to him. She whom you bore to me, Bruennhilde, shall be tenderly waked by the hero; awake, your wise child shall perform a world-delivering deed! Wherefore, sleep! Close your eye: dreaming watch my passing! Whatever works be theirs, to that Eternally Young One, the god in gladness yields his place. Down, then, Erda! Ancient Fear! Original Care! To your eternal sleep! Down! Down!..." Erda sinks into the earth, the glimmering light fades from the cave.

A bird-note is heard, light and sharp, approaching. A bird flutters into sight and Siegfried, following it, appears upon the scene. The bird, as if at the recognition of danger,--the ravens of Wotan are hovering near--in all haste flies quite away. Siegfried resolves to go on alone. He is stopped by the Wanderer's voice: "Whither, boy, does your way lead you?" Here is some one, thinks Siegfried, who may show him the way. "I seek a rock," he replies; "it is surrounded by fire; there sleeps a woman whom I wish to wake." "Who bade you seek the rock? Who taught you to wish for the woman?" "A little woodland bird told me about it in his singing; he gave me good tidings." "A little bird gossips of many things, but no one can understand him. How did you derive the meaning of his song?" "That was the effect of the blood of a wild dragon,..." and so forth. Wotan continues to ply the youth with questions, just as a kind old grandfather of humankind might lead on a child to talk, for the simple sake of hearing what he will say, for delight in his ingenuousness. The utmost tenderness for this joyous Walsung speaks in the tones of the greybeard. The final object of his questioning is to lead the youth to some acknowledgment of himself as a factor in his fortunes. Without discarding his incognito, he longs to hear on the grandson's lips some name which stands for himself, some reference to him. So, from the question, "Who prompted you to attack the strong Worm?" he passes to the question: "Who shaped the sword, so sharp and hard, that the strongest enemy should succumb to its stroke?" and when Siegfried replies that he did this himself, insists further: "But who shaped the strong pieces, out of which you forged the sword?" The answer to this is, "Waelse!" It can be nothing else. Siegfried, however, replies: "What do I know? All I know is that the pieces could be of no use to me until I forged the sword over again for myself." Wotan breaks out laughing: "I agree with you!" Siegfried suspecting that he has been quizzed, loses his patience, becomes curt and rough. "What are you laughing at me? Old questioner, you had better stop. Do not keep me chattering here! If you can direct me on my way, speak. If you cannot, hold your mouth!" Deplorable are the manners learned in Mime's cave. "Patience, you boy!" Wanderer mildly checks him; "if I seem old to you, you should offer me reverence!" "That," jeers Siegfried, "is a fine idea! All my life long an old man has stood in my way. I have no more than swept him away. If you continue to stand there stiffly opposing me, beware, I tell you, lest you fare like Mime!" As, with this threat, he takes a stride nearer to the stranger, he is struck by his appearance. "What makes you look like that?" he asks, like a child; "what a great hat you have! Why does it hang down so over your face?... One of your eyes, beneath the brim, is missing.... It was put out, I am sure, by some one whose passage you were stubbornly opposing. Now, take yourself off, or you might easily lose the other!" The indulgent grandsire is still not stirred from his patience, though this must strike a little painfully on his heart. "I see, my son, that, unencumbered by any knowledge, you are quick at disposing of obstacles. With the eye which is missing from my other socket, you yourself are looking at the single eye which I have left for sight." At this riddle, the brilliant Walsung eyes merely flash mirth, while Siegfried laughs at the obscure saying. Not a moment does he waste in reflection upon it, but, with growing impatience to resume his quest, orders Wanderer to guide him or be thrust out of his road. "If you knew me, bold stripling," the suffering god speaks, still gently, "you would spare me this affront. Close to my heart as you are, your threatening strikes me painfully. Though I have ever loved your luminous race, my anger has before this brought terror upon them. You, toward whom I feel such kindness,--you, all-too-bright!--do not to-day move me to anger.... It might destroy both you and me!" All that is plain to Siegfried, mad to be off in search of his sleeper, is that this prattling old personage neither tells him his way nor will consent to move out of it. As he once more rudely bids him clear the path to the sleeping woman, Wotan's anger breaks forth: "You shall not," he exclaims, "go the way the bird pointed!" "Hoho! You forbidder!..." cries Siegfried, amazed, "who are you, trying to prevent me?" "Fear the Guardian of the Rock! My power it is which holds the maid under the spell of sleep. He who awakes her, he who wins her, makes me powerless for ever!"

Wotan, it would seem, is challenging the boy. His anger, justified though it would be by the stalwart cub's behaviour, is half affected. He had declared not far from this very spot, some eighteen years earlier, that no one who feared his spear should ever cross the barrier of fire. The hour is at hand when the spear must offer itself to be braved by this incarnate courage bent upon that same adventure,--when Wotan must take the chances of discovering that this boy is freer than he--the god. He had declared himself but a moment ago, in his communication with Erda, willing to yield his supremacy to the Eternally Young One. Actually to do it must be a little bitter, after enduring that Young One's cavalier treatment. Perhaps--the text admits of the interpretation,--Wotan is sincerely angry; at Siegfried's impertinence he has changed his mind in respect to yielding his throne to him, and with a real intention of driving him back from the rock describes the terrors of the mountain: "A sea of fire surges around the woman; hot flames lick the rock; the conflagration rages against him who would push through to the bride. Look up toward the heights! Do you see not the light?... It is waxing in brightness.... Scorching clouds, wavering flames, roaring and crackling, stream down toward us. A sea of light shines about your head, Soon the fire will catch and devour you.... Then, back! mad child!" "Back yourself, you braggart!" cries Siegfried, nothing deterred; "up there where the flames flicker, I must hasten to Bruennhilde!" He is about to push past, when Wotan holds his spear across the path: "If the fire does not frighten you, my spear shall stop your way. My hand still holds the staff of sovereignty. The sword which you swing was once shattered against this shaft, again let it snap on the eternal spear!" Instead of appalling him, the majestic threat creates in Siegfried eagerness and glee: "My father's enemy! Do I find you here? Excellently this happens for my revenge! Swing your spear! With my sword I will split it to pieces!" And he immediately does as he has said. Nothing, it seems, not the spear of the law, can stand against the sword of perfect courage. A clap of thunder accompanies the sundering of the spear. The broken pieces roll at the Wanderer's feet. He picks them quietly up. With godlike calm, the hour having struck, he accepts inevitable fate. The motif of downfall points this beginning of the end of the gods. "Go your way! I cannot hold you!" He vanishes in darkness.

"With broken weapon the coward has fled?" says Siegfried, looking about for his father's enemy. The magic fire, as if to force the intruder back, has been pouring further and further down the mountain-side. But the one whom it should frighten rejoices, glories in the glory of the flames, jubilates. "Ha! Delightful glow! Beaming brightness! A radiant road lies open before me! Oh, to bathe in the fire! In the fire to find the bride! Hoho! Hoho! Hahei! Hahei! Merrily! Merrily! This time I shall lure a dear companion!" He sets the silver horn to his lips and gaily blowing the Lock-weise starts up the mountain and is lost among the swirling sanguine smoke-clouds. The fire burns bright; the merry call is heard from time to time from the unseen climber. The fire pales--the barrier has been past, the region above is reached, the charmed sleeper's domain. When the veiling smoke completely clears, we see the remembered scene of the Valkyries' rock, and Bruennhilde lying under the spreading pine, as Wotan left her.

It is calm golden daylight. Over the brow of the mountain appears Siegfried and stands still a moment, outlined against the cloudless sky, wondering at the peace, the airiness, considering the "exquisite solitude on the sunny height!" The sweet Fricka-motif speaks aloud as it were the unconscious language of his blood, voices the vague instinct toward nest-building which in the Spring lightly turns a young man's fancy to thoughts of love. He has come in search of a bride, upon the word of a little bird; but his ideas concerning the promised "dear companion" are so few, and the novelty of all he is seeing so takes up his mind, that when his eyes presently fall upon the recumbent form his first thought is not that here must be what he has come in search of.

He approaches and marvels at the bright armour. He lifts off the great shield, again like a child, to see what it covers. A man in suit of mail! He can see the face in part only, but warms with instantaneous pleasure in its comeliness. The helmet, he surmises, must press uncomfortably on the beautiful head. Very gently he takes it off. Long curling locks, loosed from confinement, gush abundantly forth. Siegfried is startled by the sight. But the right words, "How beautiful!" rise to his untaught lips. He remains sunk in contemplation of the marvel; the tresses remind him of a thing he has often watched: shimmering clouds bounding with their ripples a clear expanse of sky. As if drawn by a magnet, he bends lower over the quiet form and so feels the sleeper's breath. "The breast heaves with the swelling breath, shall I break the cramping corslet?" Cautiously he makes the attempt, but, finding his fingers unapt at the task, solves his difficulty by aid of Nothung. With delicate care he cuts through the iron and lightly removes the corslet. "This is no man!" he cries, starting away in amazement. Such emotion seizes him, with sensations of dizziness and faintness--such a pressure on the heart, forcing from it burning sigh upon sigh, that, with a sense of having no resource in himself, he casts about for help in this all so unfamiliar exquisite distress: "Whom shall I call on that he may save me? Mother! Mother! Remember me!" Swooning, he sinks with his forehead against Bruennhilde's breast--to be roused again by the goad of his desire to see the eyes of the sleeper unclose. "That she should open her eyes?" He hesitates, in tender trouble. "Would her glance not blind me? Have I the hardihood? Could I endure the light?..." He feels the hand trembling with which he is trying to quiet his agitated heart. "What ails me, coward? Is this fear? Oh, mother! Mother! Your bold child! A woman lies folded in slumber,... she has taught him to be afraid!... How shall I bring this fear to an end? How shall I gain back my courage? That I may myself awake from this dream I must waken the maid!" But awe of the so august and quiet sleeper again restrains him. He does not touch her, but lingeringly gazes at her "blossoming mouth," bows till the warm fragrance of her breath sweeping his face forces forth his impulsive cry: "Awake! Awake! Sacred woman!" He waits with suspended breath. She has not heard. She does not stir. An infinite weakness overtaking him, a mortal coming less, "I will drink life," he sighs, "from sweetest lips, though I should swoon to death in the act!" With closed eyes he bends over Bruennhilde's lips.

Twelve bars, the tempo of which is marked "_Sehr maessig,_" very moderate, sing themselves delicately and gravely to an end. Bruennhilde opens wide her eyes. Siegfried starts from her, not guiltily or to move from his place, only to stand erect and, absorbed, watch her movements.

Slowly she rises to a sitting posture and with beatific looks takes account of the glorious world to which she has reawakened. Solemnly she stretches her arms toward the sky: "Hail to thee, sun!" A great pause, of drinking in further the loveliness of the scene and the joy of life returned to, then: "Hail to thee, light!" And after another great pause of wondering ecstasy: "Hail to thee, radiant day!... Long was my sleep.... I am awake.... Who is the hero that has awakened me?" Siegfried stands spell-bound, in solemn awe at the sound of her voice and the superhuman splendour of her beauty. He answers, in the only way he knows, childlike, direct: "I pressed through the fire which surrounded the rock; I released you from the close helmet; Siegfried I am called who have awakened you!" At the sound of the name, the altogether right one, Bruennhilde takes up again her song of praise: "Hail to you, gods! Hail to thee, world! Hail, sumptuously blooming earth!" And Siegfried breaks forth, in an exalted rapture which inspires his ignorance with expression befitting the hour: "Oh, hail to the mother who bore me, hail to the earth which nourished me, that I might behold the eyes which now shine upon me, blessed!" Bruennhilde, joining in his hymn of gratitude, blesses, too, the mother who bore him, and the earth which nourished him, whose eyes alone should behold her, for whom alone she was destined to awake. The love-scene following leaves a singular impression of greatness. The wise daughter of the Wala and the "most splendid hero of the world" are simple as children, sincere as animals or angels, ardent with honest natural fire, like stars. When their love finally reaches a perfect understanding their song is a succession of magnificent shouts, primitive as they are thrilling.

"Oh, if you knew, joy of the world," Bruennhilde exposes her artless heart to the hero, "how I have loved you from all time! You were my care, the object of my solicitude! Before you were shaped, I nurtured you, before you were born, my shield concealed you,--so long have I loved you, Siegfried!" He believes for a moment that his mother has not died but has been sleeping and now speaks to him. In correcting him, Bruennhilde shows herself tenderly feminine. No sooner has she spoken the words which must fall with inevitable dreariness on his ear, "Your mother will not come back to you!" than she hastens to heal his hurt with the sweetest thing her love has to say: "Yourself am I, if you love me, fortunate...." She explains the meaning of her earlier words: "I have loved you from all time, for to me alone Wotan's thought was known. That thought which I must never speak, which I did not think, but only felt; for which I strove, struggled, and fought; for which I braved the one who had framed it; for which I was made to suffer and bound in punishment; that thought--might you but grasp it!--was naught but love for you!"

It could hardly be hoped that the young forester should at this moment be able to grasp anything so subtle, as he helplessly confesses: "Wonderful sounds what you winningly sing; but the sense of it is dark to me. I see your eye beam bright; I feel your warm breath; I hear the sweet singing of your voice; but that which in your singing you would impart, stupefied, I understand it not! I cannot grasp the sense of distant things, when all my senses are absorbed in seeing and feeling only you. With anxious fear you bind me: you alone have taught me to fear. Whom you have bound in mighty bonds, no longer withhold from me my courage!" Bruennhilde at this, with the touch of nature which makes the Valkyrie kin to the young lady of drawing-rooms, turns her head away and talks of something else. She talks of Grane, whom she sees grazing a little way off. As her eyes fall upon the corslet, cut from her body with a sword, the sight smites upon her saddeningly, as a symbol. A consciousness of danger and defencelessness oppresses her, and when Siegfried, made bold in his fear of her by the very need he feels of overcoming that fear, impetuously seizes her in his arms, in terror she starts away from him and wrings her hands with a woful sense of not being any more that Bruennhilde "whom no god had ever approached, before whom reverently the heroes had bowed, who holy had departed from Walhalla." She feels her wisdom forsaking her, her light failing, night and terror closing down upon her. She appeals to him at last against himself: "Oh, Siegfried, see my distress!"